The Artists' Palette

Chapter 10

I pace the room nervously, wishing I had a watch.  How long did my interrogation last?  It seemed like hours, but that could have been a result of the pain I went through.  Time flies when you’re having fun, right?  So time drags on when you’re not.

            How much time has passed since then?  I passed out on the floor, so it would have been a little while.  I wouldn’t have woken up ten minutes later, not while I was in that state.  Considering the wave of exhaustion that washed over me, I would have been out for at least six hours.

            What could possibly be taking Lark this long?  Who was his interrogator?  Were they rough?  Anxiety is shaking me like the hand of a little girl playing with a doll.  That’s all I really am right now:  a toy, a pawn.  I have no value anymore, and the only reason my brain is currently intact is because they thought I might have information for them.  Now that I’ve proven myself to be utterly useless, they’re going to dispose of me.

            But when am I going to meet this fate worse than death?  And why in God’s name isn’t Lark here, too?  Did he lie to them; give them false information?  Now that I think about it that would have been a brilliant course of action.  Not only would I have saved my skin, but I also would have deterred them from further laying hands on the rebels… who, despite my hatred for their putting me in this position, I am beginning to admire.  Anybody who openly defies the Administration is all right in my book, and the fact that they have managed to evade capture for so long is nothing short of incredible.  Part of me wants to meet them, to congratulate them on their work.  However, the other part wants to knock them all upside the head for letting Lark, my town, and I take the fall for them.  If they had any sense of integrity, they would use their obvious power (for why else would the Administration be after them?) to get us out of this godforsaken dungeon.

            I get up and slam my hand into the wall, but not hard enough to do any real damage to either of us.  How is it that in a few days, everything in my world was flipped upside down and destroyed?  No art.  No family.  No friends.  Shortly, I will have no mind.  No individuality.

            “I literally have nothing else to lose,” I whisper to myself.  All I had left was my brain, and Lark.  Now my brain is going to be hacked at and probed, probably before I ever see Lark again.  If I see him afterwards, will it even register?  Or will he just be another face, a person to glance at and disregard among the sea of other people?

            My best friend.  My first love.  Gone.

            But I can’t give up hope.  I know it sounds cheesy, but wait until you’re all alone in the prison of your enemies, stripped of everything that matters most to you, surrounded by a gut-wrenching display of blankness, constantly reminded what you will be turned into.  Then, perhaps, you won’t be so quick to judge.  You’ll understand that sometimes, hope is all there is left to cling onto.  I myself used to scoff at those words when I saw them on the page of a book.  I’d sneer at them and think; can’t they be a little more original?  But it’s not that—a lack of creativity, or a lazy attempt to fill pages with meaningless words.  It’s truth.  Because while you can turn your head, ignore my plight, and carry on with your life as if nothing has happened, not all of us are that fortunate.  And no, I do not care what you think of how I am desperately clawing at hope, trying not to let it slip from my fingers and merge into the endless stretch of white blankness, along with everything else.  I don’t know what will happen to me, and I don’t know if you are even out there, listening to me.  I just know that this is real.  This is happening, and I have nowhere left to turn but to the shimmering arms of hope.